I am having trouble posting replies to other people's messages so I had to start a new blog in response to someone's comment on how we have freedom in this country. Here's my take on the issue of our freedom: Yes, compared to Sudan or Ruanda or Myanmar or any of those opressive nations we have absolute freedom and for that I count my blessings everyday. But compared to the rest of the industrialized west, I hate to disillusion you but we are quite limited in the freedom area. And although we do have freedom of speech, these days our voices aren't even being heard because our elected officials only have ears for their campaign funders: the corporate giants. The European governments would NEVER get away with what is going on here because there would be uprises French Revolution style. My husband is from Sweden and we visit his family and other European nations annually. Not only do they have free healthcare and education all the way through post graduate school, but the minimum wage is so high they have no grocery baggers so people bag their own groceries. They are insured for healthcare when they travel abroad. They get 13 months paid maternity leave to be split between mother and father as they wish. They get 5 weeks paid vacation a year and use it to travel the world. There are no homeless people. There is the rich, the upper middle class, and the middle class. No one lives below poverty lines. Sure they pay a little more in taxes than we do, but it is NOTHING compared to our healthcare costs and tuition fees. Our kids are coming out of college crippled by student loans and our middle class are bankrupted by medical costs. I can go on and on but no one has all day so I'll just say I feel backwards and primitive everytime I visit Europe. If European socioeconomics sound too good to be true, it's because we've been taught that we have it the best in the entire world and we believe it because we have nothing to compare ourselves to. The only information we get about the outside world is that of empoverished, under developed nations that we help and rescue. So of course we think we have it best. We don't know any better. And about helping other nations, contrary to our beliefs, we are NOT the only country that does it. All of Europe does. Each country in proportion to its own financial capacity. As for vaction time, Here in the US we are lucky if we get two weeks paid vacation. Most of us can't afford to travel anywhere during our vacation. And don't even get me started on healthcare. We don't have the freedom to choose our doctor or hospital or medication because our insurance and pharmaceutical bureaucrats make those choices for us, if they deem us eligible for the coverage, which is getting rarer and rarer. These days they are leaving us for dead. My generation (49 y/o) is now forced to work till our dying day because we will have no social security and our healthcare costs are gone out of control. So, it deeply saddens me to say this but I no longer feel free. What with the middle class quickly dying: Americans who are losing their jobs and homes daily are now willing to work for minimum wage just to feed their children, some even are waiting in food bank lines. I can't help but feel that our freedom has been stripped away from us. Wallstreet, Pharma, and insurance have reduced the American people to near slavery and nothing is stopping them. They continue to steal our tax dollars and give themselves billions in bonuses while the average American family is sinking deeper and deeper into poverty. The more job loss there is, the richer the corporate giants become by forcing Americans to work for lower wages, thus increasing their profit margins. We are on a fast and dangerous train ride to becoming a 3rd world country where 1% of the population owns all the wealth and assets of the nation and everyone else is in dire financial circumstances. So, I no longer believe that we are free. We have become slaves to corporate America and are living in a plutocracy. I apologize for the gloom and doom.